Utilities scramble again to provide the splice of life

The skies cleared yesterday morning, generators chugged to life in driveways and backyards and the wait began for power to return.

After two big storms last year that left many without electricity for a week or more, area residents who were plunged into the dark Monday as Hurricane Sandy whirled toward landfall in New Jersey fretted that they might again be facing days of getting by on generator power or, worse, sitting in the dark.

In the center of Northboro, traffic ventured tentatively through intersections left unmanaged by darkened traffic lights, and the low drone of generators running in the distance was audible for blocks in every direction.

“Everybody's getting sick of it, but there isn't thing one you can do about it,” said Chuck Krouse of Beverly Road, who had a 7,000-watt gasoline generator running noisily in his driveway. “If people had allowed National Grid to trim the trees before, we wouldn't be having this problem.”

Mr. Krouse said he lost power for three or four days in both of last year's big storms, Tropical Storm Irene in August and the freak Halloween snowstorm in October, and wasn't surprised to lose it again on Monday about 4 p.m. as gusty winds howled outside.

By yesterday afternoon, he was on his third tank of gas for the generator at a cost of about $18 a tank, he said.

“If you don't want to be without power here, buy a damn generator,” he said with a shrug.

At the time, 78 percent of the town didn't have electricity, according to National Grid outage figures. That percentage had dropped to 15 percent by early last night.

In the southern part of the county, Charlton also was particularly hard-hit with about 48 percent of the town without power as of 9 last night.

Charlton resident John Rice is among many people in the region who have bought generators after too many agonizingly long waits in the dark and cold for the power to come back on.

“The fog rolls in, and we lose power,” he quipped.

Mr. Rice and a friend, Paul Wendgender of Sturbridge, went to a local coffee shop with free wireless Internet access to get some work done yesterday.

In Worcester County, more than 50,000 customers were still without power as of yesterday afternoon, roughly 17 percent of National Grid customers in Central Massachusetts. That number had inched down to 33,152 by last night, according to National Grid figures.

In the northern part of the region, Unitil said it had restored power to 99 percent of its electric customers in Massachusetts, all but about 34 homes and businesses, by last night.

National Grid officials said in a conference call with reporters yesterday that the utility had been working feverishly to get a complete picture of power outages across the state since early morning and had been aided in that work by fair weather, more than 300 contractors from other parts of the country and what they said were better damage-assessment procedures compared to last year's destructive storms.

While repairs on major transmission lines began early yesterday and the number of customers without power had dropped from a peak of 237,000 statewide to about 118,655 by the evening, officials said they didn't yet have estimates on when the power would be back on in specific communities.

The outage numbers dropped quickly in Worcester throughout the day. As of early last night, the city still had 4,489 homes and businesses without power — about 6 percent of the 77,309 National Grid customers in Worcester.

Line crews are working 16-hour stretches with eight hours of rest between shifts, said Marcy L. Reed, National Grid's president for Massachusetts.

Ms. Reed said she was moved by the scenes of flooding and destruction from New York, New Jersey and Delaware, but all of the company's crews and contractors would continue work here until power is fully restored.

“It is my only commitment to tend to the customers of Massachusetts, and I will do that. When we're done, we will absolutely lend a hand,” she said.

While she stopped short of making any predictions for when power would be fully restored, Ms. Reed said she was optimistic based on early progress.

The company has been under scrutiny from state Attorney General Martha Coakley, utility regulators and customers for what many considered lackluster performance getting power back on after Tropical Storm Irene and the snowstorm last October.

The state Department of Public Utilities is assessing legal arguments from Ms. Coakley that National Grid should be fined $16.3 million for problems during last year's storms.

DPU spokeswoman Krista Selmi said utilities were required to submit their emergency response plans for Hurricane Sandy last Friday. She said the agency will be checking to make sure the plans are followed and effective.

“The utilities are going to be watched on this, their storm response this time around,” Ms. Selmi said.. “They will be judged by their response on the ground.”

She said it's still too early in the repair and restoration effort to say how National Grid and other utilities are doing so far.

“The governor has said we need to give it some time,” she said.

At a packed coffee shop in Sturbridge, Richard Sadowsky was checking the National Grid website yesterday afternoon to see when power might be restored at his house in town.

“Last year it was nine days,” Mr. Sadowsky grumbled.

Pointing at his laptop screen, he noted, “Look here. It says 'unassigned' so that means it hasn't even been assigned to a road crew. I'm going to say it's not going to be today, based on past history.”

National Grid's Ms. Reed said the company restored hospitals first, then turned its attention to damage assessment and repairing major transmission lines and substations. From there, crews will work their way down the company's infrastructure to smaller power lines and outages affecting fewer and fewer people.

Perhaps sensing the frayed patience of customers and regulators, National Grid launched an all-out public relations blitz touting its readiness for the storm on Twitter and in media interviews days before Hurricane Sandy got here. In the conference call yesterday, Ms. Reed defended the company's restoration efforts last year while, at the same time, trumpeting improvements that she said are producing better results already this time.

“This year I think you're seeing better communication and the fact that the storm took two days to get here gave us more time to get crews here,” she said, before adding, “But judge me about how we're restoring power.”

“We started nine hours ago,” she said yesterday afternoon. “The fact that we have restored 60,000-plus people is testament that we have improved our assessment process.”

Scott and Kim Stevens of Northboro, who lost power about 7 p.m. on Monday along with much of the town, will have to wait at least a while longer to join those who have gotten power back.

The couple had just moved to Northboro from Wrentham last July. About a month later, Tropical Storm Irene knocked out electricity in their neighborhood for seven days. They lost power for days again last October when the Halloween snowstorm dumped heavy, wet snow on trees that hadn't yet dropped their leaves.

“I've heard around town that Northboro always loses power. We never lost power in Wrentham for more than a few hours at a time,” Ms. Stevens said.

Yesterday, they had an orange extension cord running out a second-floor window and across their lawn to a generous neighbor's new generator. Mr. Stevens was using the power to run his laptop and to keep his cell phone charged, so he could work from home.

Sturbridge Town Administrator Shaun A. Suhoski said he understands the déjÀ-vu frustrations of residents who have yet again lost power, possibly for days. As the sun set yesterday evening, about a quarter of the town's National Grid customers still didn't have power despite minimal visible damage from the storm.

“I do see a legitimate effort from the managers of National Grid to improve the flow of information. They really have, but they have a long way to go at the field level,” Mr. Suhoski said yesterday. “It's day one. It's not day seven. We're hopeful we will see a lot of progress overnight and in the day.”

Kim Ring and Craig S. Semon of the Telegram & Gazette staff contributed to this report.